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In the exhibition Tuesday's Child at Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, Deborah Paauwe has positioned her photographs within the context of nineteenth-century sentimental, social and aesthetic codes. During the nineteenth century in Britain, there evolved a pervasive, and highly codified, symbolic system for the expression of emotions and social relationships. Influenced by Romanticism, Victorian motifs provided a discreet shorthand for what was usually a religio -sentimental expression: different flowers had different symbolic meanings; the cross, anchor and heart signified faith, hope and charity; a single hand meant friendship while two hands clasped meant faith. Victorian England gave us the nursery rhyme that begins 'Monday's child is fair of face ... ' and which continues on to ascribe different attributes to children according to the day of the week on which they are born. This rhyme, like much social and cultural phenomena from nineteenth century Britain, represents a synthesis of superstition and sentimentality. lt marries religiosity to sentiment by saving the biggest bumper load of desirable attributes for Sunday's child, born on the day of the Lord.
Paauwe's images of deliberately and solemnly posed child subjects uphold the sense of gracefulness that the Tuesday-bern child in the nursery rhyme is said to possess. Where the nursery rhyme represents a litany of character types, the photographic series is a litany of postural role-play. In addition to a series of passive standing poses the photographs recreate a number of stereotypical child hood rituals: curtsying, praying, playing dress-ups, having a 'sleep over'.
Depicted in the photographs are images of either two girls of different age, or a girl and a young woman (their faces are not shown so the age of the second figure is ambiguous)